Hi all,

	The current auto-configuration scheme for POV-Ray (3.50c) is
undoubtly targetted towards Linux and gcc, which means a lot of its
initial potential is simply lost. The ./configure script and related
facilities were initially prepared by Mark Gordon for the UNIX version
of the first 3.5 release. As he mentionned in the docs, it was his
first trial with those GNU tools, and it proved to work well on Linux
architectures. However, since then all other *nix platforms have been
on their own.

	This is my attempt to make things evolve in this field. While
I already know there is room for improvement (see below), I post it
right now so that as many UNIX people as possible try it on their own
platform(s).
	For simplicity, please post feedback in the same thread. Future
version might be announced in different threads (but there won't be any
version number...).


NEW FEATURES
============

1) Any compilation flag is now checked at configuration time instead
    of being hard-written in the Makefile.
2) The src/optout.h file is modified automatically so that no hand-
    editing is required for updating the DISTRIBUTION_MESSAGE_2 field.
    This message is for now setup as "user@machine".
3) A --disable-shared option is added for linking with static libraries
    instead of shared libraries (default).


INSTALL
=======

	The configure script has been reworked with the last autoconf
(2.57) and automake (1.7.2) versions (but in principle you don't need
them on your systems). Several supporting files are also provided, so
the whole stuff is given as a .tar.gz file. You will need a **clean**
povray-3.50c distribution.

1) Download http://pov4grasp.free.fr/download/povray-3.50c-config.tar.gz
2) Go to the parent directory of your povray-3.50c source tree.
3) Unzip and untar the archive, e.g. 'tar xvzf povray-3.50c-config.tar.gz'

	The old files will be replaced by the new ones, and some will be
added to the original distribution. NOTE that the file src/optout.h must
be the original provided with the povray distrib, NOT the one you modified
yourself to update DISTRIBUTION_MESSAGE_2.

4) Type in './configure [options]'
5) Build with 'make' and install with 'make install'

	Type './configure --help' for a list of supported options.


SYSTEMS TESTED
==============

	I'm not root on any machine I have access to, so all softwares
I install are placed under my home directory using the --prefix option,
and an up-to-date environment variable LD_LIBRARYxx_PATH for loading the
shared libraries at runtime.

Linux 2.4
---------

gcc 3.2.2
GNU make 3.79.1
zlib 1.14
libpng 1.2.5
libjpeg 6b
libtiff 3.5.5

./configure --prefix=$HOME

(Running with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/lib:/usr/lib)


IRIX 6.5
--------

gcc 3.2.1
GNU make 3.79
zlib 1.0.4
libpng 1.2.5
libjpeg 6b
libtiff 3.4beta037

./configure --prefix=$HOME --x-includes=/usr/include --x-libraries=/usr/lib32

(Running with LD_LIBRARYN32_PATH=$HOME/lib:/usr/freeware/lib)

On IRIX, X-windows is unfortunately not detected without the explicit --x-PATHS
given above.


KNOWN PROBLEMS AND FUTURE WORK
==============================

* Libpng seems to be an issue at least on IRIX. This configure script needs
   the lastest libpng-1.2.5 to work. Maybe 1.2.3 and 1.2.4 will work too, but
   I didn't test them. Older versions might fail when linking. At test must be
   added to detect which version is installed and which library name to link with.
   For now povray is linked with -lpng12 (not -lpng).

* Could also check the version of the other libraries; should stop when
   a particular library is not found, with an error message.

* I guess only GNU make will work correctly (untested others make's).

* An option should be provided to customize DISTRIBUTION_MESSAGE_2 instead
   of the default "user@machine" replacement.

* And other things I probably forget or need to be reported first !


	Hope it'll work for you  :o)

	Cheers,
	- NC

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